Book Review

John Hersey's immensely moving Hiroshima is the text often burdened with the explication of the atom bomb's terror. Ibuse's Black Rain deserves equal exposure to a Western audience. Based on contemporaneous diary and journal entries of the bombing we follow the principal narrator Shigematsu, in the days after the destruction of his home, when the black rain threatened and fell. Unbearably poignant, Shigematsu begins re-writing his journal of the events in the hope of securing an engagement for his niece scarred by radiation sickness. Black Rain is never mawkish nor melodramatic. Its microscopic view initially seems to fail to ask the larger political and moral questions that surely such an atrocity demands, but a more nuanced understanding soon dawns: these larger questions cannot be asked of any situation if the more prosaic comprehension of ordinary human misery (and its correlative: ordinary human pride) is not in some way investigated. Black Rain has an awful beauty. It is a testimony to hope and a disavowal of horror. And it is a feat of writing brilliance.

Readers Comments

Leave a Comment

If you have not posted a comment on RSB before, it will need to be approved by the Managing Editor. Once you have an approved comment, you are safe to post further comments. We have also introduced a captcha code to prevent spam.

Javascript is not currently enabled on your browser. If you can enable it, your input will be checked as you enter it (on most browsers, at least). You may find this helpful.

Name

Email

Enter the code shown here:

Note: If you cannot read the numbers in the above image, reload the page to generate a new one.